The objective of this study was to investigate the perceptions and purchase behaviors on foreign matters in food. For that, we conducted a survey of 348 adults living in a metropolitan area. Concern over the presence of foreign matters in food was a lower than that for other harmful factors such as heavy metals, BSE, harmful microbes and so on. 70% of respondents would not take the snack which was detected a rat’s head, including the manufacturer’s product and similar products with it after the foreign matter incident. In contrast, about of 54% respondents were willing to buy canned tuna after the incident. It is necessary to prepare more detail management and policy on foreign matters in food.

This paper analyzes economic efficiency of strawberries and tomatoes farms using the data envelopment analysis (DEA). We examine how production characteristics and farm size affect overall efficiency (OE), allocative efficiency (AE), and technological efficiency (TE). We also survey sample farm households from the Farm Income Investigation database of Rural Development Administration to investigate management and cultivation techniques and to analyze economic efficiency by technique. Implications for improving efficiency are suggested in the conclusion.

There are growing interests in environmental friendly cultivation for the matter of health concern. This study analyzes an economic efficiency of strawberry and tomato farming by considering the role of environmentally friendly cultivation. The Database of Rural Development Administration is used for strawberry and tomato farming households. We adopt a Bayesian stochastic frontier model to resolve a small sample property of the data. Empirical finding is that environmentally friendly cultivation improves the revenue of farming but the effect on net profit is not conclusive which calls for future research.

This study analyzes an economic efficiencies of apples, pears, and grapes farming. We evaluate an annual economic overall efficiency (OE), allocative efficiency (AE), technology efficiency (TE), pure technology efficiency (PTE), and scale efficiency (SE) using data envelopment analysis (DEA). We also measure returns to scale of farms, and the change of technical efficiency of frontier farms. Lastly we estimate the effects of some explanatory variables on allocative, pure technical, and scale efficiencies.

The objective of this study is to investigate the commercializations and difficulties on the farm-food. For the activation of the farm-food, it is necessary to totally review the support of the government and prepare the supporting system like manual on the commercialization of farm-food that is helpful to the small farmers. It is also necessary to support small farms strategies customized for increase the sales and satisfaction on farm-food and build-up the promotion related to the green tour and/or farm experience. The results and finding of this study can be used to build-up the supporting system that reflects the rapid change of market and customer’s preference. They can also be used to design rational policies that is helpful to the farm-food producers.

This paper evaluates potential environmental impacts and external costs on rice production of Korea. The investigation is based on LCA in agricultural area which estimates inputs and outputs of rice production system in quantitative way. The results show that environmental impacts on organic rice(4.49E-08 DALY/kg) is level on 4.5% out of conventional rice(9.97E-07 DALY/kg). The external costs of organic and conventional rice are 4.04won/kg and 89.52won/kg respectively. The balance of both organic and conventional rice which is 85.48won/kg represents monetary value on improvement of environmental effects as producing organic rice.